last night on late night

Watch Stephen Colbert Read His 17-Year-Old Top 10 List on Letterman

Did you hear, did you hear: Stephen Colbert is taking over for David Letterman next year? As he admitted on The Late Show last night, this wasn’t the first time he tried to get a job under Letterman. Colbert was once hired to be a Letterman intern back in the ‘80s, but he turned it down for lack of pay. He also told the story of how he once applied to write for Letterman, but the show took too long to get back to him. Man, the alternate-dimension story of how Colbert got The Late Show is much cuter. “Letterman Intern Gets His Turn as Next Letterman,” the headlines would read. Watch him tell these stories and read the Top 10 List he submitted as a writing sample, and imagine what could’ve been.

Colbert Read His Old Top 10 List on Letterman